The Australian Higher Education Industrial Association (AHEIA) wants enterprise agreement negotiations in the sector turned on its head.
AHEIA wants productivity to be the key topic, not wages and conditions.
"Typically, parties come along to these negotiations with a shopping list of changed pay and conditions," the Executive Director of AHEIA, Craig Laughton, said.
"Productivity increases should be the first thing on the table and that then can be the basis for talks about changes to wages and conditions.
"Universities are a key to addressing Australia's flagging productivity, but they're being hamstrung by industrial regulation driven by the Greens and policy changes that inhibit not enable productivity.
"An example is the restrictions on the Fair Work Commission to have a free hand in determining disputes when an intractable bargaining situation arises. The Commission hands are tied with existing (often antiquated) enterprise agreement provisions effectively grandfathered".
"This means an independent arbitrator cannot freely determine an outcome - this will dramatically hamper productivity gains across the sector."
"Perhaps business leaders, unionists, economists and politicians meeting in Canberra can address such issues," he said.
Mr Laughton said AHEIA had written to the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations on the matter.
